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Self-Critical Perfectionism, Depressive Symptoms, and HPA-Axis Dysregulation: Testing Emotional and Physiological Stress Reactivity

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Abstract

Self-critical perfectionism confers vulnerability for depressive symptoms, but research suggests vulnerability persists after treatment. Dysregulation of physiological stress systems is a potential mechanism for depression vulnerability, and yet it remains under-studied in research on perfectionism, stress, and depression. We aimed to address this gap by testing the influence of self-critical perfectionism, stress generation, and stress reactivity on depressive symptoms and on diurnal cortisol. A sample of undergraduates (N = 127) completed questionnaires and provided samples of salivary cortisol twice daily (morning and evening) over three days. Data were analyzed using path analysis with diurnal cortisol activity modeled using latent growth modeling. People high in self-critical perfectionism showed a greater propensity toward depressive symptoms through stress generation and stress reactivity processes. Although self-critical perfectionism did not directly predict diurnal cortisol, results supported physiological stress reactivity. Specifically, people high in self-critical perfectionism showed increased waking cortisol in high and low stress conditions, whereas people low in this trait showed higher cortisol only in the context of high daily hassles. Results suggest prolonged physiological activity may be an important factor to consider in future research and points toward the development of bio-psycho-social models when understanding how self-critical perfectionism confers vulnerability to depressive symptoms in the context of stress generation and reactivity.

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Funding

This research is part of the doctoral dissertation of Logan J. Nealis and was funded by a Dalhousie University Department of Psychiatry Research Fund grant awarded to Logan J. Nealis, Simon B. Sherry, and Sanjay Rao. Logan J. Nealis was supported by a Canada Graduate Scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and a Nova Scotia Health Research Foundation (NSHRF) Scotia Scholarship. We thank Lauren Matheson for her research assistance.

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  1. Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Dalhousie University, Oxford Street, PO Box 15000, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3H 4R2, Canada

    Logan J. Nealis, Simon B. Sherry & Tara Perrot

  2. Department of Psychiatry, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada

    Sanjay Rao

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  1. Logan J. Nealis
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  2. Simon B. Sherry
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Correspondence to Logan J. Nealis.

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Logan Nealis, Simon Sherry, Tara Perrot, and Sanjay Rao declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Ethical approval for this study was granted by the Dalhousie University Health Sciences Research Ethics Board on July 15, 2014 (Reference number 2014-3304).

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

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Nealis, L.J., Sherry, S.B., Perrot, T. et al. Self-Critical Perfectionism, Depressive Symptoms, and HPA-Axis Dysregulation: Testing Emotional and Physiological Stress Reactivity. J Psychopathol Behav Assess 42, 570–581 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-020-09793-9

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